


Traces of You

by CBlue



Series: The Account of Gravity Falls [1]
Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - Historical, M/M, Past Character Death, Reunions, With A Twist, all is explain in the notes at the end and not the actual writing?, but not really, whoops???
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-24
Updated: 2019-01-24
Packaged: 2019-10-15 10:24:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17527001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CBlue/pseuds/CBlue
Summary: Dragged to the Northwests Ball, Mason "Dipper" Pines finds himself in the company of a man he thought dead. Reunions are supposed to be sweet, but nothing was ever traditional with William Cipher. This work was heavily inspired by "I Know Those Eyes (This Man Is Dead)".





	Traces of You

The swelling music of the ballroom was nothing more than a white noise to the young man who pushed past dancing couples to find sanctuary against the vacant wall. He sighed, brushing his bangs that clang to his forehead in sweat away from his skin. The amount of people that had swarmed him had immediately caused his skin to clam. A glimpse of an odd birthmark of sorts peeked out beneath his brunet bangs as he swiped his hair back into place. A counterpart, almost identical in feature yet obviously softer, glided up next to him.

Smiling, she hung herself off of his right arm. "Come on, Dipper." The young woman spoke. "It's a party!" Her grin that she had plastered across her face quickly fell at the lack of Dipper's response. "At least _pretend_ to be enjoying yourself." She huffed.

"I don't like parties, Mabel." The first twin explained simply. "I showed up. Isn't that enough?" He raised an eyebrow, the inquiry nothing but honest.

Mabel sighed, shaking her head. "You have to dance at a ball, silly." Her smiled returned but more gentle this time. "You might even meet someone." Although she playfully shoved her brother with her shoulder, something about her eyes spoke more than her words had said at face value.

An overwhelming sorrow overcame Dipper's features, dropping his demeanor as he turned to face the twirling jamboree. "I..." he began, "just don't feel like it." Dipper forced a reassuring smile across his face to soothe her worried brow. "Maybe later?"

Perhaps it was something that the twins shared at birth, or perhaps it was something that they both had gained from growing so closely to one another. "Alright, Dipper." She let herself smirk as she pulled away from him. "But I'll hold you to it!" She accosted.

"I promise!" Dipper chuckled, holding up placating hands. He drug his forefinger across his chest, marking his heart in a silent oath.

He watched as his sister's lavish dress swished behind her fast movements. Quickly, she was in the fray of the heart of the ballroom. It was hard to keep track of all the partners she laughed with. Her joy brought a small smile to Dipper's face, even as it didn't erase the melancholy from his eyes. Sighing, Dipper turned away from her for a moment as a strike of gold amidst the crowd stole his gaze. His eyes widened as he sought for another glimpse of what he thought he had seen. Again, Mabel's bright pink gown caught the corner of his eye, but she continued on as if she hadn't seen what Dipper had seen. Everyone danced on in merriment as if no one had seen the ghost that Dipper had just seen.

Pushing himself off the wall, Dipper waded through the throng of people to find another hint of the sunlight that had shone through the illuminated ballroom. His movements grew more frantic the deeper he pushed through the crowd without any sighting of the color that painted his dreams. Frozen and downtrodden in the midst of the party, Dipper looked around himself. Unable to bring himself to reflect their happiness, he turned to retreat back to the safety of his wall when another flash of gold called for him.

Jerking his head to face where he had seen it, a tall figure adorned with a well fitted suit met his visage. Dipper gaped for a moment as he stared in equal parts shock and awe. He shoved harshly through the thick crowd as his coattails whipped behind him. Forcing himself through, Dipper's features brightened to reflect that golden sun that peered through the clouds of the party, only to fall when the familiar figure turned away from him. Dipper only slowed his speed once he had broken through the crowd. He stood just on the precipice of the ball and just short of the balcony that those familiar eyes had left him for.

It felt like another dream for Dipper. Another nightmare that twisted his once dreams as his heart sailed over the largest waterfalls that he had only read about, only ever been told about. Dipper swore he heard that voice that had enraptured him with tales of far off lands call him as he rushed to the balcony. Leaning over the railing using only his gloved palms as balance, Dipper spotted the fleeting sun as it ducked away into the thicket of the garden. He mentally cursed the Northwests' for their extravagant bushes, even as he had complimented them on their way up to the ballroom.

Dipper pushed himself away from the balcony, running down the steps that lead into a conjoining, private garden that opened into the larger one where Dipper's heart called him. He had sworn he saw those ghostly eyes drawing him. No matter if the vision was phantom or not, he had to know. Dipper had begged for another glimpse of him, any part of him. His heart raced with his hurrying footsteps.

Skidding on the once sharp heels of his sole, Dipper stopped himself short of the figure that stood against a thicket of red roses. He inhaled sharply, gasping for the breath that this waking dream had stolen from him.

" _William_." He whispered into the night. Dipper had no doubt this mirage, just as the others before it, would dissipate just beyond his reach. Still, he cautiously stepped forward.

The figure made no aim to move. It looked as if the ghost were not even breathing. Dipper prayed for a ghost, or anything that he could see. Despite his heart wishing to hold him. Stripping his hand of the glove, he reached out his bare fingertips to touch at the wisps of the dream that haunting him even in the daylight. As if the suit were the sun, and the smile were the moon, Dipper was surrounded by constant reminders of him.

When Dipper's fingers clenched at fabric, and not some phantom form, his eyes widened and again his breath was stolen in a sharp intake. "William?" He breathed again, stepping closer as his eyes teared. "Wi-"

William jerked his arm out of Dipper's barely there grasp. A sharp set of teeth snarled at him in something that was only ever created in his cruelest of nightmares. " _I'm not that man_." His voice echoed coldly in the chilled night air.

Eyes misting from bated tears, Dipper shook his head. "I..." he caught a glimpse of deep eyes. Those same eyes had enthralled him with whispered notions of starlight. "No, I know you." He said absolutely.

Those same deep eyes turned to ice beneath their shared gaze. "You don't know me." William turned to fully face Dipper. The sharp teeth that Dipper had once seen as a smile he now recognized as some sharp fang pricking at his bottom lip. "The man you know is dead. You've already moved on." He continued with words like frost in Dipper's veins.

Anger boiled away the harsh verglas that coated his heart from William's venomous seeming words. " _Moved on?!_ " Dipper spat back, leaning forward into the heated space of this once familiar man. "I _died_ that day! Every day since then I've haunted my life as if I were the ghost!" His brow furrowed deeply as his words spewed forth. "And now you're back and you speak to me about moving on? When you won't even speak to me as the man you once loved?"

Something caught in William's eyes. Dipper had struck the chord he had wanted to in his furious melody, or the earnest emotion that Dipper knew leaked from his every pore must have poured onto William's entire being. He stumbled, taking a step back. "I..." he shook his head, "Things as they once were are no more." He said again as his expression closed off. "The man you had claimed to love is dead."

A resonating slap reverberated higher than the muffled ensemble that tried to enamor Dipper back into the sanctuary of the party and things he was certain of. His eyes widened with a start when he realized his hand stung from where it had made contact with William's cheek. Those deep eyes bore back into Dipper, but he swallowed and squared his shoulders.

"Every day I have loved you." He spoke lowly. "And every day you will continue to haunt me." Shaking his head, Dipper ripped his gaze away from William's unreadable face. The sharp features that Dipper knew better than any star map once upon a time now seemed like uncharted territory. "Damn you for it." He spat to the ground beneath his feet. "And damn me thrice over for not resenting you for leaving me with your half-cocked promises."

Gently, a soft hand lifted Dipper's chin. Meeting once foreign eyes that melted into something intimate that Dipper had memorized long ago, those deep eyes seemed to glow with an unnatural blue light. Tenderly, William leaned closely into Dipper's space. His eyes almost closed of their own accord, lost in an instinct Dipper thought he had long forgotten. William's lips moved slowly as he spoke. Dipper could scarcely make out the words.

"William Cipher is dead." He moved away as swiftly as a North wind, away from Dipper.

Dipper almost fell to his knees at the sudden lack of warmth. His bare hand reached out for the mirage that still slipped through his fingers even as his solid body stood there. He seemed too far away, despite being right in front of him. Dipper looked to his mismatched hands, and then to William. Silently and wordlessly, Dipper begged for him to step closer, to come back.

William turned away from him. Only a silhouette of his outline was the hint that Dipper had to his expression which remained painfully neutral. The cold nipped at Dipper's slowly dying heart as he shook his head, trying to fight away the threatening tears. He blinked away the water that obscured his sight of the demon of his dreams. Watching as the figure turned to retreat, Dipper heard the wind whisper gently into his ears.

"We'll meet again, Pine Tree."

Shaking, Dipper fell to his knees. His legs collided in a solid **_thud_** against the stone of the garden. The roses that greeted his sight in place of his vision of William seemed to wave at him in mocked pity. As ran slowly began to pour, Dipper wondered idly if the petals had seen everything and were crying. He wondered if they mourned with him as his every aspiration and want wisped out of his grasp again.

"Mason!" He heard the gruff shout of his name from behind him, but it sounded like nothing more than the ballroom music beneath the heavy rhythm of the rain. " _Mason_!"

Large, warming hands were placed on either of his shoulders, helping him to stand. He looked emptily to the older gentleman who frowned harshly at him. The gruff speaker removed his coat quickly, draping it over Dipper's shoulders. Dipper followed the older man in silence. It was not until his guardian had lead him to an overhanging pavilion that Dipper spoke.

"I saw him, Grunkle Stan." He whispered against the heavy rain as he shivered into his grunkle's coat. "I _saw_ him."

Understanding of the vision that Dipper had yet to explain, Grunkle Stan frowned gently with a worried set to his brow. His gruff voice spoke up again. "Mason, William is dead." He said softly.

Turning from Grunkle Stan and facing out into the garden, Dipper could barely make out the sunlight shining through the rain. The increasingly familiar and reassuring blue glow of the resurrected William's eyes struck him. Smiling softly, Dipper smiled bittersweetly. His William was dead, even as his ghost haunted this world. Something else now and not the man he once knew. Dipper vowed to find his secrets, to rediscover him again. A curious Pines was never to be stopped. "I know."

The wind carried his words to the figured that stared at him from across the way. Closing his eyes and envisioning their once intimate dances, William's shell swiftly turned away before his empty heart called him home to warm arms. A hunger beat through his veins and a thirst pulled at his senses. He had business elsewhere to attend to. Blue flames kissed against his skin as an odd, triangle shape burned into his eye.

**Author's Note:**

> "There are no words left to say."
> 
> \- I Know Those Eyes (This Man Is Dead) from The Count of Monte Cristo
> 
> The song heavily inspired this little snippet of a quickly growing AU. Here's the AU's breakdown! I might write more of it, but for now here it is!
> 
> In some vaguely Victorian-type era, Mabel and Mason Pines are under the care of their (rich) great uncle Stanford Pines. "Grunkle Stan" raises the two of them in the town of Gravity Falls, so aptly named by its strangely formed water falls near the edge of town. Grunkle Stan forbade Mabel and Mason from ever stepping foot in the outskirts of town. Along their many adventures and growing in the town as strange and unnatural things begin to occur around them that their Grunkle seems unaware of, Mason meets William Cipher. William Cipher is a young man who apprenticed under a strange and mysterious figure who wrote the journals that Mason had first discovered upon exploring the Pines Mansion.
> 
> When they're both of age, William asks for Mason's hand in marriage. He accepts, more happy than he's ever been. However, good things never seem to last in Gravity Falls. While Grunkle Stan is neither firmly against or for the union, William's promises of showing Mason all of the strange occurrences that happen in distant lands farther than Gravity Falls makes him leery to the young man. Despite all of this, the two remain happily engaged. Until William suddenly leaves.
> 
> Following a lead on the author of the journals, William leaves Mason in Gravity Falls, making an oath to return. Unfortunately, William would break that promise. With no word from him, he is assumed dead, and when his belongings are found deep in the woods, it is most certainly confirmed. Mason grieves for his beloved, closing himself off. Eventually, though, he has to continue with his life. He watches and helps Mabel in her socialite life and Grunkle Stan with manning the mansion, but his heart never recovers.
> 
> Unbeknownst to Mason, as William was exploring, he had fallen into a deep cavern. He was certain he would meet his demise there, but upon seeing strange writings about a powerful entity residing in the cave, he pleaded for his life. A demon twisted out from the circle drawn on the wall, smiling widely at William. He struck a deal with William, giving him enough power to make it out of the cave but at a cost. He was twisted, no longer human. Now a demon of power not even known to himself, his half of the trade was to bring the demon back into physical form. He had not known this meant the demon binding itself to his soul. He becomes half William Cipher, half Demon of the Dark.
> 
> In this section of the story, William breaks in his resolve to not see Dipper in this state and watches him at the Northwests' party. The confrontation that happens here leads Dipper into rediscovering the journals in hope to find a way to save William. He'll later discover that William is possessed by the same demon that thwarted the author of the journals.
> 
> The author of the journals, the real Stanford Pines, had hidden away in the demon's temple, breaking the binds to this world that would allow the demon a threshold here, but trapping himself in the temple. His twin brother, Stanley Pines, posing as him and inheriting his fortune by doing so has searched thoroughly for any hint of the temple so he may free his brother.
> 
> The story continues from there, but this is what the AU is ^^ I hope you all enjoyed and thank you for reading!!


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